This program discusses
the possibility of
breatharianism, or living
without eating food, and
is not a full instruction.
For your safety,
please do not attempt to
cease eating without
proper expert guidance.
For your safety,
please do not attempt to
cease eating without
proper expert guidance.

In scriptures,
the human body
is often referred to
as the temple of God.
Yet, it is quite
an uncommon privilege
for any soul to
attain this sacred abode
that houses the Divine,
as it is truly a blessing
to be reborn
as a human being.
On several occasions,
Supreme Master Ching Hai
has spoken about the rarity
of this phenomenon:

To be reincarnated in
the human world is hard.
You have to have
enough Human Quality.
You have to have
affinity with the parents
and with the society,
with the people around
which you are born.
Very difficult.
To be a human,
you need some merit.
You have done
something good
in the past
in order to be able
to pick a human birth.

As a living temple of God,
the human body
is fully equipped
with miraculous wonders
that can be awakened
in those who
are spiritually conscious
and have complete faith
in the Creator of all life.
Inedia,
Latin for “fasting,”
is the human ability
to live without food.
Since time immemorial,
there have always been
individuals who
can sustain themselves
on prana,
or the vital life force.
Through the grace of
the Providence, inediates,
people who follow
a food-free lifestyle,
can draw the energy
from nature
to nourish themselves:

They live on the chi
from the ground,
or from the forest,
and from the sun
and from the air.
They make use
of all that.
Or they live on love,
on faith alone.
These individuals are
known as breatharians(pranarians or inediates),
solarians, or waterians,
and they come from
all walks of life, from
different cultures, and
all corners of the world.

Indeed, the possibilities
and miracles in this life
as our benevolent Creator
has designed for us
are endless;
we only need to connect
within to recognize
our abounding largess
as God’s children.
Supreme Master Ching Hai
has lovingly
recommended
a weekly series on
Supreme Master Television
to introduce
those individuals
of the past and present
who have chosen to
live food-free on Earth.
May their spiritual stories
enthrall you;
may hearts be opened,
and horizons be expanded.
We now invite you
to join us for part 1
of our two-part program
“Maria Furtner:
The Water Drinker
from Frasdorf”
on Between Master
and Disciples.

For 52 years Maria Furtner
lived without food.
Her only apparent source
of sustenance – water.
How is this possible
in 19th century Germany?
Let us find out.
Maria was born in 1821
in Weizenreit
near Frasdorf,
district Rosenheim,
in Bavaria
in South Germany,
in a deeply religious
farming family.
Growing up, Maria was
mostly a vegetarian
as her family only ate meat
five days a year and
usually on certain holidays.
As a child,
Maria was healthy
and consumed food
as everyone else,
until 1835,
when she and her siblings
came down with smallpox.

All the children
in her family
survived the illness,
but in Maria’s case,
the disease triggered
other diseases
that caused her life
to be in serious danger.
Although Maria
recovered after each of
these bouts of diseases,
each time she fell ill,
her feeling of hunger
decreased.
First, she felt repulsion
to warm food, but later
she also couldn’t take
cold food anymore.
From that moment onwards,
11-year-old Maria
lived solely on water.
Maria’s parents
were very concerned
but all attempts
to make her eat again
failed.
However,
even though Maria had
stopped consuming food,
she was quite well
after she had recovered
from smallpox.
She was described
as being slightly
on the thin side,
but other than that,
she ran and
played about happily,
could do minor chores
such as
plucking apples, and
helping out in the kitchen.

Elisabeth,
Maria Furtner’s niece,
remembered:
“When the water drinker
[Maria]
suddenly stopped eating,
our family members
visited different physicians.
But they also didn’t know
why it happened
that the girl
wouldn’t eat anymore.
She was given different
kinds of medicine
but nothing helped.
She just didn’t
have an appetite.
Finally,
our family members
stopped trying to cure her.
With the passing of time,
people got used to it
that the girl didn’t eat.
They just said,
‘The girl from Weizenreit
simply doesn’t eat.’”

Within the next five years
Maria’s family
and friends gradually
accepted the fact
that she wouldn’t eat and
stopped talking about it
altogether.
Then in 1841,
the local physician,
Dr. Carl Ramis,
reported about Maria
to Dr. Joseph Zetl
in Rosenheim
who initiated
a royal investigation.
First, he wrote
to the priest of Frasdorf,
Jakob Niedereder,
and asked for his report
about Maria.
The priest confirmed
Maria’s food-free state
in which her only apparent
source of sustenance
was water.

When Between Master
and Disciples returns
in just a moment,
we’ll find out more
about the Maria’s stay
in Munich during
the 5-week examination.
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television.

Welcome back to
Between Master
and Disciples
for our program
on Maria Furtner,
a waterian who lived
in Bavaria, Germany
in the 19th century.
In 1843, Dr. Joseph Zetl
in Rosenheim
contacted Maria
and her family,
asking for Maria
to travel to Munich
to stay for five weeks
under the supervision
of the physicians
at the General Municipal
Hospital.
Maria and her family
consented.
A carriage was sent
to Frasdorf to
bring her to the hospital
where she stayed
in an isolated room
and was taken care of
by the nuns from the order
of Merciful Sisters.
The journey
from her hometown
to Munich
was the longest distance
Maria had ever travelled
in her life.
Upon her arrival in Munich,
Maria had a slight
Eryspelas infection
on her face
which caused it
to be swollen.
She also caught a fever
due to the cold climate.

At the hospital,
Maria was
under the supervision
of renowned physicians
such as Johann Nepomuk
Ringseis and
Franz Xaver von Gietl.
She was 23 years old
at that time and
since she was a simple
and modest Catholic girl,
Maria never had had
any close contact
with members
of the opposite gender,
thus, she didn’t allow
the doctors to examine her
as they requested.
Professor Dr. Karl Emil
von Schafhäutl,
who acted as the recorder
of Maria’s examination
in the hospital, wrote
that he had to use all his
eloquence, pleadings,
and persuasive powers
to ask Maria – who was
frightened and shy –
to step on the scale
to measure her weight.
He describes
her appearance:

The girl had
a fair complexion,
was of delicate stature,
a little bit below
medium height – 140 cm.
Her weight was 43.68 kg.
The time in the hospital
was difficult for Maria.
She was kept in isolation
in her room
most of the time,
and even though
she was being given
the best water available
in Munich, she described it
as being stale in taste.
During her stay in Munich,
Maria’s food-free state
became widely known.
According to
Elisabeth Furtner,
while at the hospital,
she was visited
by the nation’s
very important personage:

“When the water drinker
[Maria] was in the hospital
in Munich
for examination,
she once was visited
by King Ludwig I.
She complained to the king
that she was locked up
like that –
the windows were sealed,
the room was
never ventilated.
She said
that she couldn’t stand it;
she would like to have
some fresh air again.
Then the King
got permission for her
to go for a walk every day
under the supervision
of the Merciful Sisters.

Apparently, Maria and
her food-free lifestyle
had left a deep impression
on the king of Bavaria
because
that was not the only time
he visited her.
In fact, he wasn’t
the only member
of the royalty
who visited Maria.
Later,
when the water drinker
[Maria] was home again,
the King also visited her
once in Weizenreit.
The Duchess of Modena
also visited her once
together with her brother,
King Maximilian II,
in Weizenreit.

At the end of five weeks,
when the examination
concluded,
Maria’s weight
had dropped by 1 kilogram.
The physicians
in attendance attested to
the validity of the claim
that Maria did not
need food to live
based on the fact that
she had not taken any food
except water
and that she had had
no bowel movement
during the entire time
that she was
under observation.

It has been a pleasure
to have you with us
for today’s episode of
Between Master
and Disciples.
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television for
Good People, Good Works,
after Noteworthy News.
May your life be blessed
with Heaven’s grace.

During the observation
period, Maria also took
a consecrated
host 2-3 times a week.
Intuitively, Maria
couldn’t take hosts which
were not consecrated,
even if they were diluted
in water.
Her niece,
Elisabeth Furtner,
remembered:
“In Munich,
the physicians once
gave her a host which
was not consecrated,
diluted in water.
The water drinker
[Maria] didn’t know
about it.
She regurgitated it
immediately.”

How did the public view
the results of
the investigation in which
well-known authorities
in the medical field
proved that Maria
possessed the ability
to live without the need
for physical food?
Join us again
next Sunday when
Between Master
and Disciples continues
with part 2 of
“Maria Furtner:
The Water Drinker
from Frasdorf.”

“She never ate anything
but she drank water
every day.”
Maria Furtner,
a 19th century waterian
from Bavaria, lived for
52 years without food.
Tune in to
Supreme Master Television
on Sunday, August 29,
for our program,
“Maria Furtner:
The Water Drinker
from Frasdorf,”
on Between Master
and Disciples.

Tune in to
Supreme Master Television
today for our program,
“Maria Furtner:
The Water Drinker
from Frasdorf,”
on Between Master
and Disciples.